US officials note that their initial hopes for Koizumi's quick action on economic restructuring first had to be postponed due to the upcoming Japanese upper house election. Now talk emanating from Tokyo is that reform will naturally have to wait until the presidential elections of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in September. Of course, if that leads to significant political restructuring, then a lower house election will be necessary to solidify that new political alignment. It is slowly dawning on frustrated American officials that politically-painful Japanese economic restructuring may now be postponed until the beginning of next year.
But such concerns are for the future. "Let's get Koizumi firmly in place," said one long-time Washington-Japan hand, "then we can work on him." Right now, US-Japan relations are better than they have been for years. And it is prime minister Koizumi's performance at the Camp David summit that deserves the credit.
Bruce Stokes is the senior fellow for Economic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
RSS